Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Yaaah!

When I was young, I was a rotten kid. When I hit 1st grade I think, I calmed down. However, whenever I went to visit relatives who had seen me when I was young, they all exclaimed how calm I was compared to how I was before. I remember doing some Michael-like stunts. I remember when I discovered (and this was actually a point of inquisitive experimentation), that even if you are small lad, you can topple a grown adult off a 4-legged chair (3 legs were not enough), by applying all your force to lifting one leg of the chair. Once you get the adult unexpectedly off balance, their shifting weight will finish the topple out. I loved doing that, because it made me feel very strong.

Thus it is with young Michael Patterson in today’s For Better or For Worse (although he is older than I was when I did those things), as he discovers his mom’s eyes are not in the back or her head. Of course, Michael did this same thing to the mail carrier in last Saturday’s strip, so the chance of this being scientific explanation is remote. As with my learning to topple an adult in a chair, the second time I did it was for fun and without any expectation of the consequences.

My dad tells me he used to spank my bottom until it turned blue (a fact which horrifies him today), but I honestly have no recollection of such things. The spanking I remember was the one which occurred when I was much older, when I got spanked in 4th grade by the school principal for talking in the library line, while waiting to check out a book.

8 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Mke may have calmed down but he, unlike you, me and the rest of the world, never realized that what he was doing was wrong. What looks like reform is actually either his being too lazy to torment peope or too worried about what people who impress him think.

10:45 PM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

Sadly, I must agree with you. If there was anything the “Merrie and Robin learn about Super-Teddy” sequence taught us readers, it was that Mike was proud of his Super-Teddy antics and proud his children were carrying on the tradition. He opposed Deanna, when she commented about Super-Teddy to him, and he mentally admired Merrie’s throwing arm with Super-Teddy. These are not the actions of someone who has realized his wrongdoing.

8:44 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

To do something like that, he'd have to do something he doesn't want to do and expend the mental effort needed to see a subject from his victim's viewpoint. Since people like him think that by doing so, they'd wind up spend the rest of their lives apologizing, I don't see trhat happening.

9:33 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

At least in the case of the Super-Teddy stories a viewpoint other than Mike’s is presented by Lynn Johnston, even if Mike does not see that viewpoint. If we were take a situation like the one where Mike decided to quit his job, supposedly sacrificing himself to keep his fellow employees from being laid off, we did not get to see the perspective of the persons who had to react to what he did. It was clear in that situation, Mike also did not think through his effect on other people; but it would have been a well-rounded story if we had gotten to see the reaction of his boss and his fellow employees to the way he decided to quit.

11:39 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Mr Gluttson went into that meeting expecting to have his employee clean out the deadwood, not to have to get the next guy in line do it. If the magazine does wind up folding, the Patterson family will probably content themselves with the notion that without Mike, it was bound to do so. They would, of course, do so in error; the mass Mike left for someone else to clean up is what caused it. He may have stopped caring about his 'team' for now but will soon resume taking their feelings into consideration as he defends himself from legal action. He can't do what he did without paying some sort of penalty.

1:46 PM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

He can't do what he did without paying some sort of penalty.

In real life, yes. In FOOB life, I doubt we will ever hear another word about Portrait Magazine, just as we will never hear another word about the Kelpfroths. That's what makes these plots weaker than Super-Teddy, because with Super-Teddy, we get Deanna's (the victim's) perspective.

2:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Or in other words, non-Pattersons don't count in the FOOB world. We only find out reactions if it is done against a Patterson; even Anthony's made-up story about Therese and his marriage was filtered through Elizabeth. April's viewpoint of Becky is given, but we never really get to see Becky's side of things and how she feels really about how April has treated her.

Which is a pity about all the secondary characters not being explored; they are oodles more interesting than the Patterson family as Lynn depicts them.

DJ

7:08 PM  
Blogger howard said...

DJ,

You are quite right. Lynn Johnston in her CBC interview made a big deal about how she has to get into the head of every character including the dogs, but she does regularly fail to get into the head of her secondary characters. You would think if she can get into the head of Edgar and Dixie, Becky wouldn't be that difficult.

9:55 PM  

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